President Obama began a three week effort today to "rebrand" Obamacare. There are going to be press conferences, speeches, rallies and all sorts of campaign stops across the country. The idea is to once again sell America on the great "benefits" of the Obamacare law.
I sometimes wonder who, if anyone, advises Obama on what to do. The average American right now knows the following facts to be true:
1. The Obamacare exchange website did not work despite the government having worked for three and a half years and spent two thirds of a billion dollars on it.
2. Despite the inability of the site to work, Obama and his people let it go live on October 1, and they acted surprised when the mess of a website was exposed as a failure.
3. Two months later, after reaching the date on which the website was now promised to work, the site still does not work. Users are shuffled into a waiting line if there is even a reasonable level of usage. Much worse, about a third of the people who think that they purchased insurance thus far have serious errors in the data given to the carriers. Many will not have insurance on January first, contrary to what they were told. And still worse, there appears to be no real security to protect Americans' confidential financial information on the site; it is a garden of delights for identity thieves.
4. Over five million families have already seen their policies cancelled due to Obamacare, a clear violation of Obama's promise that if you like your policy you can keep it.
5. Current estimates are that over the next year, about one hundred million families will see their insurance plans cancelled due to Obamacare, further violation of that same promise.
6. The cost of insurance and healthcare for most people in America is going up dramatically due to Obamacare. One insurance company estimated that 36% of its current policy holders will see increases due to Obamacare even after considering subsidies from the government, but that only 10% will see any decrease. This violates Obama's promise that the law would reduce costs by $2500 per family on average.
7. Most Americans are losing doctors or hospitals from their plans due to Obamacare. In some areas, the nearest hospital available to folks on Obamacare policies is two hours away even though there are multiple hospitals closer. Obama said we could all keep our doctors and our hospitals, but that was another untruth.
8. Young and healthy Americans are not yet signing up for insurance. For most, the cost is prohibitive. Indeed, even though there is supposed to be a subsidy for individuals earning up to roughly $44,000, in many states, there are no subsidies even for people making $27,000 because of the design of Obamacare. It is no wonder that folks are not signing up.
9. The 27% of Medicare recipients who have Medicare Advantage plans are seeing their available doctors and hospitals cut back. This is due to the cuts in Medicare resulting from Obamacare.
10. The projected cost of Obamacare has gone from 900 billion to 2.7 trillion dollars over the next decade. Obama promised that it would not add to the federal deficit, but he was off by just around two trillion dollars in that projection.
So what is Obama going to tell us in his rebranding tour. It's not the Magical Mystery Tour. It's more like the Ordinary and Obvious Tour. Maybe he could call it Lies on Parade. What is he going to tell us? He used to say that those who opposed Obamacare did not want to give health insurance to those without it, but that won't work. Obamacare is actually likely to increase the number of uninsured in 2014. Hopefully, Obama is not going to tell us how the problems only affect 5% of the people. One hundred million families are going to see their plans cancelled; that's half the people in the USA. Surely, he won't use the claim that substandard policies are the only ones being cancelled; that just is not true, and the people whose policies are affected will know that. So just what is he going to say.
Personally, I think that Obama would do much better if he were to stay in Washington, stop giving speeches and work to repeal and replace Obamacare. The law has already done enough damage. America needs corrective action now, not another Obama campaign.
I sometimes wonder who, if anyone, advises Obama on what to do. The average American right now knows the following facts to be true:
1. The Obamacare exchange website did not work despite the government having worked for three and a half years and spent two thirds of a billion dollars on it.
2. Despite the inability of the site to work, Obama and his people let it go live on October 1, and they acted surprised when the mess of a website was exposed as a failure.
3. Two months later, after reaching the date on which the website was now promised to work, the site still does not work. Users are shuffled into a waiting line if there is even a reasonable level of usage. Much worse, about a third of the people who think that they purchased insurance thus far have serious errors in the data given to the carriers. Many will not have insurance on January first, contrary to what they were told. And still worse, there appears to be no real security to protect Americans' confidential financial information on the site; it is a garden of delights for identity thieves.
4. Over five million families have already seen their policies cancelled due to Obamacare, a clear violation of Obama's promise that if you like your policy you can keep it.
5. Current estimates are that over the next year, about one hundred million families will see their insurance plans cancelled due to Obamacare, further violation of that same promise.
6. The cost of insurance and healthcare for most people in America is going up dramatically due to Obamacare. One insurance company estimated that 36% of its current policy holders will see increases due to Obamacare even after considering subsidies from the government, but that only 10% will see any decrease. This violates Obama's promise that the law would reduce costs by $2500 per family on average.
7. Most Americans are losing doctors or hospitals from their plans due to Obamacare. In some areas, the nearest hospital available to folks on Obamacare policies is two hours away even though there are multiple hospitals closer. Obama said we could all keep our doctors and our hospitals, but that was another untruth.
8. Young and healthy Americans are not yet signing up for insurance. For most, the cost is prohibitive. Indeed, even though there is supposed to be a subsidy for individuals earning up to roughly $44,000, in many states, there are no subsidies even for people making $27,000 because of the design of Obamacare. It is no wonder that folks are not signing up.
9. The 27% of Medicare recipients who have Medicare Advantage plans are seeing their available doctors and hospitals cut back. This is due to the cuts in Medicare resulting from Obamacare.
10. The projected cost of Obamacare has gone from 900 billion to 2.7 trillion dollars over the next decade. Obama promised that it would not add to the federal deficit, but he was off by just around two trillion dollars in that projection.
So what is Obama going to tell us in his rebranding tour. It's not the Magical Mystery Tour. It's more like the Ordinary and Obvious Tour. Maybe he could call it Lies on Parade. What is he going to tell us? He used to say that those who opposed Obamacare did not want to give health insurance to those without it, but that won't work. Obamacare is actually likely to increase the number of uninsured in 2014. Hopefully, Obama is not going to tell us how the problems only affect 5% of the people. One hundred million families are going to see their plans cancelled; that's half the people in the USA. Surely, he won't use the claim that substandard policies are the only ones being cancelled; that just is not true, and the people whose policies are affected will know that. So just what is he going to say.
Personally, I think that Obama would do much better if he were to stay in Washington, stop giving speeches and work to repeal and replace Obamacare. The law has already done enough damage. America needs corrective action now, not another Obama campaign.
No comments:
Post a Comment